An Interesting Map - take a look at all the deadbeats

**the mule** · 06-11-2012, 01:20 AM

Originally Posted by ArcticSplash

If it passes that test, then you can plop down the $800 to force a Sheriff's Sale. You have to be belligerent though. I am juggling a couple of properties myself through Sheriff's Sale right now and I want to rewrite Lisa's Sheriff Sale guide so it captures the process at GRB Law which is different than RETU and Linebarger, plus there is the whole thing with the Land Bank which could make a complete end-run around the Sheriff's Sale, since the Land Bank can strip the title to a property w/o any need for a sale.

Any info on the process at GRB Law would be greatly appreciated.

**Spicoli** · 06-11-2012, 09:34 AM

Sheesh....In Point Breeze, they should've just put up a map of the handful of properties who actually do pay taxes. It would've been a lot easier to read.

**torts** · 06-11-2012, 10:07 AM

guys, don't worry about it. just tax me. and then let me know when your street gets dirty. i'll come around and clean it. and your house too. just leave some dust rags by the front door.

**ArcticSplash** · 06-11-2012, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by the mule

Any info on the process at GRB Law would be greatly appreciated.

I'm working on it. I'll pester some folks to see if I can find some leverage.

**Hospitalitygirl** · 06-11-2012, 10:43 AM

Originally Posted by torts

guys, don't worry about it. just tax me. and then let me know when your street gets dirty. i'll come around and clean it. and your house too. just leave some dust rags by the front door.

I know.

I say we don't pay any increases in taxes...perhaps even stop paying our taxes, until the collection rate from deadbeats is vastly improved.

I for one am tired of paying out the wazoo; having to pay more on a regular basis, and then getting less and less for it.

**seand** · 06-11-2012, 12:57 PM

I'd just like to point out that out in the "hood" there are a couple of factors going on. One is some owner-occupants, particularly heirs who have inherited a house who were basically given it as "grandma's house" for free and they just don't pay taxes, or a mortgage, or insurance. Which sucks. Many of these houses eventually become all of our favorite drug houses. Sadly often middle class siblings are all too willing to "give" the house they don't want to live in to the one sibling with the spiraling substance abuse problem, intentionally. But also there are a whole lot of crappy slumlords intentionally not paying taxes. Nationally about 70% of low-income households rent. Why? Because obviously they don't have the assets to make a downpayment or credit rating to get a mortgage, even from FHA. There are an awful lot of small-time and some not so small-time slumlords extracting rent from their crappy slum rental homes who don't pay property taxes. And its ridiculous that the city doesn't take away the properties from these truly neighborhood destroying landlords. Three, is there is a huge amount of abandonned properties with clouded titles where the heirs are long gone and surprise, surprise noone is paying the taxes on these. Instead they sit slowly falling down till we taxpayers are finally asked to pay for L&I to demolish them. A lien (which will likely never be collected) is added to the massive back tax bill on this basically worthless property. But they still show up on the map.

**StrangeTanks** · 06-11-2012, 01:36 PM

Here we go again with the back tax thing.

First of all, the city has ALREADY collected most of the money from those delinquent back taxes! They might have only been paid a penny on the dollar for them, but the fact of the matter is that if all the delinquent taxes were collected the city wouldn't experience the windfall most people think.

The tax debt is sold at a discount to a couple of lawfirms in the city. They are then the ones who are responsible for collecting the debt and make a profit on the investment. This is a typical case of a big business making piles of money off the city, they have the muscle to make sure that the current system never changes. You can elect all the mayors you want, I promise not one single change will get through city council.

Clouded titles are a whole other ball of wax. The city of Philadelphia is a biggest crappiest slumlord in the city.

**ArcticSplash** · 06-11-2012, 02:10 PM

Originally Posted by seand

I'd just like to point out that out in the "hood" there are a couple of factors going on. One is some owner-occupants, particularly heirs who have inherited a house who were basically given it as "grandma's house" for free and they just don't pay taxes, or a mortgage, or insurance. Which sucks. Many of these houses eventually become all of our favorite drug houses. Sadly often middle class siblings are all too willing to "give" the house they don't want to live in to the one sibling with the spiraling substance abuse problem, intentionally. But also there are a whole lot of crappy slumlords intentionally not paying taxes. Nationally about 70% of low-income households rent. Why? Because obviously they don't have the assets to make a downpayment or credit rating to get a mortgage, even from FHA. There are an awful lot of small-time and some not so small-time slumlords extracting rent from their crappy slum rental homes who don't pay property taxes. And its ridiculous that the city doesn't take away the properties from these truly neighborhood destroying landlords. Three, is there is a huge amount of abandonned properties with clouded titles where the heirs are long gone and surprise, surprise noone is paying the taxes on these. Instead they sit slowly falling down till we taxpayers are finally asked to pay for L&I to demolish them. A lien (which will likely never be collected) is added to the massive back tax bill on this basically worthless property. But they still show up on the map.

That explains most of the residential property. VLCIPs are a different ball-of-wax.

One thing I see frequently in Kensington is non-construction financing taken out against crap property. Part of the Kensington Megalots is mortgaged--with no structures on it. I can't explain that set up, but there's recorded promissory notes and they post-date the last factory fire that was on those lots. The Buck Hosiery building for instance had an active mortgage but it was another odd party-to-party mortgage recorded on it. The complex hadn't been touched since the last time it was used for a business. This is an aspect of vacant/abandoned property that I am just at a total loss to explain. I hope I can learn more what goes on behind these transactions when the civil trials begin.

**ArcticSplash** · 06-11-2012, 02:19 PM

Originally Posted by StrangeTanks

Clouded titles are a whole other ball of wax. The city of Philadelphia is a biggest crappiest slumlord in the city.

No that's PHA, which is not a city agency, but a state agency.

The City of Philadelphia is not doing settlements. When it puts a lien out for assignment that is not the same as selling off (completely) the rights to the lien. If you know the difference between "inside" collections and "outside" collections and "3rd party debt sales", this is "outside" collections.

I would love to see an experiment with Philadelphia using true 3rd party debt collection. Those are the nasty, threatening, FDCPA-devying guys who call employers, stalk your Facebook, and in their case, they can easily file loads of cases in CP and hope for default judgement and move for a preacipe writ. There's a long of hungry attorneys who do Personal Injury who would instantly switch and start doing collections work if the City would completely farm these things out. Say every single lien over 6 years old.

**raider.adam** · 06-11-2012, 02:34 PM

Haha I searched my last name and saw a dot by where I lived. I zoomed in more and it is someone on the block next to me with the same last name, haha.

Originally Posted by StrangeTanks

Here we go again with the back tax thing.

First of all, the city has ALREADY collected most of the money from those delinquent back taxes! They might have only been paid a penny on the dollar for them, but the fact of the matter is that if all the delinquent taxes were collected the city wouldn't experience the windfall most people think.

The tax debt is sold at a discount to a couple of lawfirms in the city. They are then the ones who are responsible for collecting the debt and make a profit on the investment. This is a typical case of a big business making piles of money off the city, they have the muscle to make sure that the current system never changes. You can elect all the mayors you want, I promise not one single change will get through city council.

Clouded titles are a whole other ball of wax. The city of Philadelphia is a biggest crappiest slumlord in the city.

Eh, I don't know if this is a case of big business making money off of the City. If it is, then it is a case of Rendell orchestrating it.

**StrangeTanks** · 06-11-2012, 04:17 PM

Rendell did it because years ago the city was faced with the same problem. Tax collection basically didn't work, especially on those folks who were well connected.

The city was facing a financial hard time and selling off the debt resulted in a one time giant payment to the city, he looked like a hero for 5 minutes.

**guzzijason** · 06-11-2012, 05:15 PM

So, the map shows that 2013 Mt Vernon has a total delinquency of $165,786.94, but when you click the link for current city records, it only shows a balance of $673.35. What gives?

__Jason

**ArcticSplash** · 06-11-2012, 09:10 PM

Originally Posted by guzzijason

So, the map shows that 2013 Mt Vernon has a total delinquency of $165,786.94, but when you click the link for current city records, it only shows a balance of $673.35. What gives?

__Jason

Are you talking about this property?
2013 MOUNT VERNON ST / ZBABot

Looks like the owner caught up on most of the bill. I don't show that it's eligible for Sheriff's Sale. There's a related property that also has a similar situation:
http://banditproject.org/ZBABot/Prop...?OPA=123209100

The EConsult map the Inky is pointing to was made in August of last year. It's not up to date I believe. The RETU tax site is current as of the previous business day.

**Coco** · 06-11-2012, 10:25 PM

Originally Posted by nuosc

It was 2037, and G-Ho Joe returned home from work, beaten and exhausted. He shooed away from his door the dancing holograms advertising pizza joints and fly-by-night Chinese take-out places (none less than 20 blocks away), and stepped inside. His mail sat just where it always did, partially sticking out of the mail slot, and he grunted as he bent to pick it up. He saw with dismay that his new property tax bill had arrived, and reconciling himself to some bad news, he went ahead and opened it.

The City had assessed his house for $1.5 billion, with a new millage rate of 98%. Given that just a month ago, G-Ho Joe had tried to refinance his house and discovered its appraised value was only $270,000, he was somewhat surprised at his tax bill. He called on his voice assistant, SIRI25.

"What can I help you with, Joe?" she asked.
"Can you find out why I owe about $1.4 billion in property taxes this year?" he replied.
So SIRI25 searched the interwebs, probed the public records and the announcements and pronouncements from City Hall, read the local news feeds, and returned before G-Ho Joe had taken his next breath:

"It's because the City needs $1.4 billion for the schools and other services," she told him.
Joe thought about this for a few moments, and realized he still didn't really understand.
"But $1.4 billion is exactly what they say I owe," he said, "so how can that be?"

So SIRI25 went away again, and searched the neighborhood forums, the public databases and the minutes of various City Council meetings. Although it wasn't really allowed, she even whispered her question to other Voice Assistants in the neighborhood, who passed the question on to others, spreading across the entire City. She returned before Joe had blinked:

"In 2012 the tax delinquency rate in Philadelphia was about 20%, Joe," she said, "but since then it has continued to grow and grow. Today there is only one person left in the City who is paying their property taxes, and it appears that that person is you."

**OffenseTaken** · 06-11-2012, 11:26 PM

Originally Posted by Coco

+1

I'm kinda glad we'll still have a postal service in 2037, even though there will be floating holographic junk mail.

**OffenseTaken** · 06-12-2012, 12:46 AM

...

**Brian616** · 06-13-2012, 11:31 AM

Check out Washington Ave in that map- our good friend Phat Mot already is way behind on his taxes. The poor guy.

**NE19149** · 06-13-2012, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by Brian616

Check out Washington Ave in that map- our good friend Phat Mot already is way behind on his taxes. The poor guy.

Poor, eh?
I dunno how accurate this is but......

About:
Vuong Hung Super Market in Philadelphia, PA is a private company which is listed under grocery stores. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $500,000 to $1 million and employs a staff of 1 to 4.

So, where the hell's the money going?

Sounds like just another asian deadbeat to me.

**BrianL** · 06-13-2012, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by Brian616

Check out Washington Ave in that map- our good friend Phat Mot already is way behind on his taxes. The poor guy.

He has 4 properties in this LLC, DUNG PHAT LLC, that owe a total of $163,534.64

**Sharkfood** · 06-13-2012, 01:20 PM

I know of one vacant lot in a promising area which last paid taxes in 1979.

The owner took title in 1929. I purchased the 1940 US Census record and it appears he was close to 80 years old at the time
and childless; in addition, he was an immigrant from England without any American heirs.

Why the hell the city doesn't send shiit like this to Sheriff's sale is beyond me.